1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to automated design systems and methods for planning and designing utility stations. More particularly, the present invention relates to automated design systems, methods and computer program product, for designing, and estimating materials and costs for utility stations, such as a unit substation or other component of a public utility system, such as an electric power generation, transmission and distribution system.
2. Discussion of the Background
In 1999, a typical unit substation design and development project costs approximately 1 million dollars and takes roughly one year from conception to completion. The typical process begins with an engineer who prepares a sketch of the substation, and sends the sketch to a drafting area, where a draftsperson takes the sketch, along with associated notes prepared by the engineer, and develops a working construction set (i.e., a set of drawings with associated symbols and notes). The draftsperson then gives a draft construction set to the engineer for review. At this time, during the review, the engineer would either modify the construction set, or add additional information to the construction set and then send the modified construction set back to the draftsperson for redrafting to incorporate the changes. The draftsperson completes the changes and sends the changes back to the engineer. This iterative process can repeat as many as four or more times. Once the construction set is finalized, roughly three or more months have expired since the initiation of the project.
As presently recognized by the inventors, the conventional design process presumes that every unit substation has to be redesigned by the engineer, even though approximately 90% of the components are the same between substations. In this way, the engineer has to address each component of the system, even though the engineer may have already done similar work on previous projects. After the initial design is done, the engineer then prepares a materials list of the components and prepares a cost estimate.
Regarding how the details are developed in the drawings, the Engineer is provided with a “one line diagram” from a planning department and includes an electrical representation of the symbols for each device to be included in the substation. Conventionally, draftspeople use CAD (computer aided design) programs, like AutoCAD, a draftsperson oriented program. The draftsperson then draws the component parts of the system using the CAD program. After a CAD drawing has been prepared, the engineer will provide the CAD drawing to the planning department, who at that time may decide to further modify the substation, so as to change components required therein, or change the system performance to meet perceived customer demands. If the planning department does change the drawings, another engineering and drafting operation is required in order to produce a final set of construction drawings.
These construction drawings are detail oriented, such that the drawings may be provided to a contractor for building the substation. For example, the construction drawings will have detailed features, such as conduit placement, foundation placement and grounding placement. The drawings also show the connections amongst the different subcomponents used in the substation. These connections can be very detailed, perhaps showing a small connector fitting between pieces of bus lines. This detail may become very cumbersome because a unit substation may have between two and three hundred electrical connectors. Furthermore, the unit substation may have three to four hundred feet of aluminum bus infrastructure, a couple thousand feet of copper in the ground, and on the order of 20 to 50 foundations. After the drawings are complete, the engineer then uses the drawings to fill out a materials list for the equipment to be ordered. Generally, it is a time consuming process for the engineer to scrutinize the different components on the drawing and list the same on a materials list.
As recognized by the present inventors, the iterative process between the engineer and the draftsperson is a time consuming process, and an expensive procedure for designing substations. The conventional process presumes that each substation has different characteristics that mandate the use of a significant amount of engineering, as well as draftspersons' time in order to properly design the substation. However, as presently recognized, there can be a significant amount of redundancy between respective substations, that if, properly characterized could be an advantage in streamlining the design process.
Another limitation with the conventional practice, is that the iterative design process is prone to error, based on the number of different people involved in the process. Furthermore, because each substation is custom designed, it is more difficult for planning departments, as well as contractors who will build the substation to interpret the drawings because each set of construction plans differs from one substation to the next.